The growth in personal computer (PC) usage and internet connectivity has forged new and creative ways for individuals and businesses to communicate. Among these new methods include those which involve using video cameras to add video input to communication. Video cameras allow individuals and businesses to participate in activities such as video conferencing, video mail, interactive document editing, and object display.
Existing consumer grade video cameras are produced inexpensively and are available at low cost. These cameras, however, produce fairly high visual distortion. FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a single lens consumer grade video camera lens system 100. Light beams 111-113, reflected from an object, pass through a lens 120 to be focused before being directed towards an image sensing array 130. The beam of light 112 passes through a center region of the lens 120 and hits the image sensing array 130 at a 90 degree angle, producing a clear and accurate portion of an image of the object. However, due to the curvature of the lens 120, the beams of light 111 and 113 that pass through the edge regions of the lens 120 are directed to the image sensing array at an angle less than 90 degrees. This produces a phenomena called barrel distortion. Barrel distortion causes straight lines near the edge portions of an image received by the image sensing array to appear curved.
One approach used in the past to remedy the affect of barrel distortion was to add a second lens to the video camera lens system. FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of a two lens video camera lens system 200. The second lens 220 corrects the angle at which light beams are directed to the image sensing array 130 by the first lens 120. The drawback of this approach was that additional costs were incurred in manufacturing the second lens 220.